by Dana Marton
While the kid’s father chewed the boy out, Jack could only shake his head.
He couldn’t believe Blackwell was out there while he was wasting his time on two-bit stuff like this. At least he was almost done with the case. Go back to the office, have the other kids and their parents called in, make the arrests. Maybe that would put him back into Bing’s good graces again.
That would be nice, since he was about to redouble his efforts to find Blackwell. He’d already lost Ashley. Not that he ever really had her. Maybe under different circumstances, he could have. But he’d now lost even that remote chance. He sure had nothing else to lose.
This was it, the endgame. He was on a collision course with Blackwell, and he had no intention of stopping until one of them was dead.
~~~***~~~
Chapter Twelve
He stood in the middle of his life’s work, an installation that filled the entire top floor of one of the nicest buildings in Broslin. His soundproofed workshop was down in the basement. The downstairs he left as it had been when he’d bought the abandoned building. If anyone somehow peeked in through a boarded-up window, let them see nothing.
But the top floor, here he spent money. The space could have been part of a wing in the Louvre. Not that he ever wanted his art to be moved there. This was his hometown. His museum should be here, maybe with the town named after him eventually. Let the French come here if they wanted to see his work. He was proud to be an American.
The canvases that hung on the walls had been painted in living blood. They’d been his first true creations, the very thing that eventually led him onto the right path.
He’d been in North Carolina to pick up a car he’d bought online. He met a young woman at the hotel bar. She came back to his room with him.
And then she changed her mind, right when things were starting to get interesting.
He hadn’t meant to kill her.
She shoved him first. He shoved her back, not that hard, really. But she’d had too much to drink, and she hit her head on the edge of the desk. There was blood, but his open suitcase on the floor caught most of it.
He didn’t panic. He wrapped her head in a towel, pulled a plastic bag over that, got her out of his room in the middle of the night, drove her to the beach, near the rocks, removed the towel and bag, and dumped her in.
When they’d found her, her death had been ruled an accident. There’d been alcohol in her system. The police had said she’d slipped on the rocks, and the rising tide dragged in her body.
He didn’t realize what he had until he came home and unpacked a white shirt that had blood all over it, the pattern amazing in its complexity, the color more real than anything he’d ever seen in a gallery.
And then he realized what he’d been doing wrong all these years he’d been trying to create art. He’d been missing the human element. So he went back to being an artist, this time using the most valuable media.
The women he took he honored with his choice. His art made them immortal.
He had a good selection of paintings now, even collages, but the centerpiece of his legacy was his three-dimensional works. He liked to walk up here, in his very own exhibit, literally walk through his art that represented death and life and resurrection.
He created it all, and he would protect it.
He didn’t like having to worry about his secret treasure. It interfered with his creative process. But he was ready to end the distraction at last.
Before the day was over, Jack Sullivan would be dead.
* * *
The birthday party was in full swing, Ashley’s head spinning. But it was worth anything to see her daughter silly-giggles happy.
Maddie and Jenny, one of her little friends, were going around the house with a bouquet of two dozen balloons in every color of the rainbow, letting them go one by one to float up to the ceiling for decoration. Heather, Jenny’s mom, the first mom to arrive, provided assistance.
“You have some pretty good works up there.” William Price came down the stairs from the loft, noiseless in his Italian-leather loafers.
“Thanks.” Ashley smiled at her father, relaxing a little. She put out the sandwiches, all shaped like crowns or ponies or butterflies—with the help of Christmas cookie cutters. She had plenty of butterflies in her stomach too. She wanted everything to be perfect.
His gold watch glinted from under his shirtsleeve as he reached out to adjust a tray. “You think you have enough material for a show?”
“Almost.” She was doing well with time. Whether or not she could go all the way to New York for an opening was still a question. But she was working on it. This morning, she had driven to the town bakery to pick up the cake. She’d even done her grocery shopping during the daytime.
“I know I’ve been hard on you,” her father said as she set out utensils and napkins that had colorful balloons on them, then added paper cups with the same pattern.
“After your mother’s death…” He linked his hands together behind his back. “I just wanted everything to be normal. The rumors about the unfortunate affair with DaRosa—” His lips flattened for a second. “When a family has the kind of standing in society that ours does, there’s a lot of pressure. One is tempted to keep up a façade even at a personal cost.”
She busied herself with refolding the napkins, but she couldn’t stop the memories from coming back. Her mother in that mental institution, the scandal of the high-society gatherings, all the guessing, all the digging for gruesome detail, then her death.
Then, less than a year after Abigail Hastings Price’s celebrity funeral, her teenage daughter falling pregnant and accusing a pillar of society, a man two decades her senior, of seducing her. DaRosa denied it. And her father kept her quiet, squelching the rumors as fast as they’d begun. He’d been in negotiations on a hundred-million-dollar business deal with DaRosa at the time.
“I don’t suppose you read the business pages much?” he asked now.
She shook her head, then felt a little guilty. Whatever her father’s faults were, he’d always taken an interest in her work, always supported it, always asked, kept track, sent friends and clients to her shows. But she’d shown very little interest in his company over the years. “How is business?”
“We’ve had some issues with DaRosa’s branch. Some accounting discrepancies were discovered. He’s been discredited to a great degree, I’m afraid. Well, ruined, according to the business analysts.”
She stared at him. “Will that drag the whole company down?”
“Since he was ousted by the board of directors almost immediately and forced to sell his shares back at a discount, I think we retained credibility. Stock price took a dip, but for the past few days, it’s been inching back steadily. Our stockholders seem convinced that we’ve made meaningful changes.”
Something in his voice made her wonder if he’d somehow engineered DaRosa’s bad luck personally, and there was more to the story than he was telling.
Then he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you back then.”
She blinked. “Why believe me now?”
“Maddie looks like him,” he said simply. “And I know now that you don’t have any of your mother’s flair for drama. Even in the face of insurmountable difficulties, you do whatever you have to and manage.”
Her throat tightened.
“I’m not a man given to emotions. I’m more apt to criticize than to praise. But I want you to know that I’m proud of the choices you’ve made and the things you’ve achieved.”
One of the tight knots inside her loosened. “About Maddie…”
“I’m only trying to help.”
She drew a deep breath. “I know, but even while I know it, in the back of my mind I resent that you have her and I don’t.”
“School will be out in a few months.”
She nodded.
She wanted to say more, but the rest of the guests were arriving. Maddie had wanted to invite both the friends she ha
d in Broslin before the accident and the friends she’d made in the city since living with her grandfather. And as much as having a crowd in her house frazzled her, Ashley agreed. She would have done absolutely anything to make her daughter happy.
Soon the dozen kids were playing dress-up in the living room, half the contents of her closet scattered across the floor, hats and scarves and high-heeled shoes, fancy theatre purses, things she’d held on to from the past when she’d actually socialized. They got hold of her makeup case too. She would definitely have to clean up the girls before the parents came to take them home.
Her father was a great help. He’d always been busy with business, working late hours and always staying a little reserved when she’d been a child. But Ashley realized now how much age, and Maddie’s company for the past year, had softened the man. They were good for each other. Maddie got a positive male role model in her life, while William Price got some cheerful company in his lonely penthouse apartment.
As her father helped one of the little girls loop a silk scarf in a tie knot, Ashley relaxed at last and let herself enjoy the sound of Maddie’s peals of laughter.
She was pulling it off. The party was a success.
She scanned the coffee table. Half the sandwiches were gone, and they were down to two juice boxes. She headed to the kitchen for more, but as she passed by the front window, she caught sight of an extra car in her driveway, a black Crown Victoria. Jack Sullivan’s.
The man didn’t know how to take no for an answer.
“I need to run outside for a minute,” she told Heather, then grabbed her coat and headed out into the cold.
The car sat empty, but she found him as soon as she rounded the house. He was walking the edge of the tree line.
She shoved her hands into her pockets, frustration punching through her as she walked up to him. “What are you doing here?”
For a second, her gaze dipped from his eyes to his lips and a pleasant little shiver ran down her spine as she remembered their kiss. She shook that off immediately. God, how stupid was she to be still attracted to the man?
“Consider me free security.”
“How about I consider you what you are? An enormous nuisance.”
“Blackwell is still out there.”
“You’re the only person who thinks so. Let it go, Jack.”
“I can’t,” he said, just as her father came outside.
He looked Jack over. “Ashley?”
She looked between the two men, wishing she knew what to say. That Jack was a deranged police detective, looking for a serial killer at her house, didn’t seem like birthday-party conversation. Her father and she had just finally reestablished a real connection. She didn’t want Jack’s demons to upset that.
“Go away,” she whispered.
But he was walking toward the house already, flashing a smile at her father. “Came to say happy birthday to Maddie.”
“Not to investigate my daughter?”
Jack’s smile never wavered. “She’s been cleared. I’m glad for that. She saved my life.” He pulled a small package from his coat pocket. “I take it the birthday girl is inside?”
He actually had a gift. Huh. Ashley shot him a questioning look, absolutely refusing to let any sort of warming happen around her heart.
“A DVD. Princesses and Puppy Dogs,” he said.
Her father clapped him on the shoulder and laughed. “Can’t go wrong with that.”
What? They were best friends all of a sudden?
She ground her teeth but plastered a smile on her face. “I better go inside and put out some more juice boxes.” Then she turned on her heels and left them in the cold to do whatever they wanted.
* * *
The sound and sight of a dozen little girls tearing through the house, screaming at the top of their lungs, left Jack immobilized for a second as he stepped inside behind Ashley’s father. If there was a place on earth he didn’t belong, this was it. He would stay anyway. He put his gift on the pile that took up most of the window seat.
William Price moved away to help one of Maddie’s friends lift a box of dolls off a shelf.
Ashley stood in the middle of the melee, directing it like a general. She’d taken her coat off. Her light wool dress hugged her curves, falling to her knees. The sight distracted him for a minute as hot lust shot through him. That never seemed to change, whether they were on good terms or bad.
A woman in her thirties swept by him with a tray of sweets. “Hi, I’m Heather, Jenny’s mom. Cupcakes?”
She probably assumed he was the father of one of the little terrors. He didn’t correct her. “Jack. Maybe later. Thanks.”
Ashley moved on to the kitchen, and he went after her. Then, when he caught up with her, he wasn’t sure what to say. Her hair was all done up fancy, makeup accentuating her huge green eyes, a smattering of glitter drawing his attention to her lips. Her breasts looked practically gift wrapped in the pretty dress.
His fingertips tingled. He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Need help?” he asked, hoping she would respond in the negative. Or give him a task like going out to the garage to guard the birthday cake in solitude and silence. That he could handle. Probably.
Then he caught sight of the birthday cake on the kitchen table behind her. The pink castle of sugar overdose was decorated with purple ponies.
“No thanks,” she said in a cool tone. “Everything is under control.”
He glanced back at the living room, at the girl who was sliding down the banister with a tiara on her head, her frothy pink dress up around her neck, laughing like the devil. Another one was painting flowers on the landing with some finger paints. An angelic blonde was strutting from the laundry room, wearing an expensive blouse of Ashley’s like a dress, bright red lipstick smeared all over her face.
“Let me know if things get out of control,” he said weakly.
“Why?” She tilted her head, mystifyingly not bothered by the bedlam. “Are you going to jump in?”
“I’m going make a run for it. But when I’m in my car and at a safe distance to slow down, I’ll call in the SWAT team.”
Her lips twitched at that, her eyes softening a little.
His gaze caught on Graham Lanius, popping up in one of the corners where he’d been apparently helping a couple of kids finger-paint something.
“What’s he doing here?”
Ashley made a face. “Ran into him at the bakery this morning when I was picking up Maddie’s cake. He brought by a present. He’s courting me for his gallery.”
He didn’t like the idea of him courting Ashley for anything, especially when he thought of the waitress the guy had grabbed at the bar. “I don’t think you should work with him.”
“My agent says the same.” She grabbed an armful of juice boxes from the counter and pushed by him, then was immediately surrounded by a handful of hellhounds in pink as she entered the living room. They clamored for face painting.
With the kids, she was relaxed and carefree, a definite contrast to when she was with him. He didn’t enjoy stressing her out, but he hated the thought of her in possible danger even more.
He padded up the stairs to escape the worst of the chaos, curious to see what she’d been working on since he’d last seen her work.
He’d never liked abstracts before, never understood them. He stepped closer to the first row of canvases leaning against the wall. As far as he could tell, any of the overactive ruffle-skirted little demons downstairs could paint something like these.
But when he moved to the middle of the loft to look around and take in the field of color as one, he found that one of the newest paintings in particular drew him. There was a calming quality to it, and he wasn’t sure whether that emanated from the lines or the colors, but he liked looking at the weird swirly thing.
He turned to the next painting and let himself relax, trying to get the feel of it. Warmth, he thought after a minute. And love. A mother’s love for h
er kid. A family. The longing that sliced through him took him by surprise, same as the other night when he’d held her in his arms. He’d been fifteen the last time he’d seen a semi happy family. He wouldn’t have thought he’d still remember it.
A battle cry downstairs drew his attention, and he turned his back to the paintings to look down at the living room over the railing. A couple of the girls were playing tag and none too gently. Somehow he’d pictured the whole thing differently. He’d expected a dozen little ladies sitting demurely in a circle and combing their dolls’ hair quietly. Or maybe having a tea party.
The only person sitting at the moment was Ashley. She was painting a little girl’s face, not the least bothered by the noise and running. Heather was coming from the laundry room with a stack of board games; she looked up and waved at him. “Want to play Princess Magic?”
“Later,” he lied through his teeth.
Heather laid the game out on the middle of the carpet, immediately attracting the attention of half a dozen girls who rushed up to her to see what she was doing.
Out of all of them, Maddie was the prettiest. Not that he was biased just because she looked like Ashley. Her tiara, sitting askew on a wavy mess of hair, was a little bigger than the others’, and it was flashing. Who came up with these things?
She threw her arms around Ashley. “It’s the best party ever. I love you, Mommy.”
And there it was, that mood and sense of family again that tugged at him with invisible ropes, pulling him toward something he wasn’t comfortable with. Yet he couldn’t look away.
Then Maddie tore off to join the rest of the girls on the carpet. Heather divided the kids into groups and was handing out dice and cards and plastic board-game figures. Ashley raised her gaze to him and pushed to standing, wiped her hands on some paper towels, then walked up the stairs to him.
“You didn’t come just to bring a present.” She watched him warily.
“I want to protect you.”
“How about you worry about yourself first? Figure out your own life before you start worrying about somebody else’s.”
